22 hours ago
4
With the dust now settled within the People’s United Party, Deputy Leader Cordel Hyde says Allan Pollard Junior deserved the PUP’s endorsement for Belize City mayor. In an interview last week, Hyde questioned the meaning of social justice within the party when a candidate he believes has earned that opportunity must fight for it at a convention. Hyde backed Pollard in the party’s mayoral race, but delegates chose Deputy Mayor Eluide Miller at the convention held at the end of August. The contest decided who would lead the PUP’s Belize City slate into the 2027 municipal elections. In an interview last week, Hyde reflected on Pollard’s years of service and explained why he felt the party should have endorsed him. Hyde also pointed to the scale of campaigning on the ground during the Belize City convention as a reason to support campaign finance rules. He says the money involved in political contests needs greater scrutiny.
Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Minister of Belize: “I’m one of those that felt that there shouldn’t have been a convention. But I’m also one of those that relish challenges against tall odds. Perhaps a little bit too much. But in this particular situation I didn’t have a choice, my conscience would have not have allowed me to not get in the fray, to not try to stand up for this young man like I’ve just seen how many times they’ve done this to this young man and it’s just not fair. What is his crime ? What is his sin ? I just felt that I had to and you know James Baldwin said that everything will not change or cannot change when it is faced but nothing is changed until it is faced. And I just feel like there comes a time when you kinda just have to stand up, you kinda have to say enough is enough and so we stood up for him. We stood up for him. We knew the odds. We knew everything that was coming. We knew all the standard bearers that were lined up and all the resources that were coming and the stories and the energy. We knew the risks that were coming. We couldn’t quantify the resources.”
Reporter: But it raises the concerns about public finance. Do you support public campaign finance legislation ?
Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Minister of Belize: “Absolutely. Absolutely. That time was twenty years ago but that time has to be now because that is I think the single biggest problem we have in electoral politics in this country. Campaign financing. If we continue to have elections costs as much as it costs not only does it mean that the everyday man and woman’s child cannot run, cannot afford to be a candidate, what it means is that the every day man and woman will continue to be disenfranchised. Continue to be isolated. Continue to be exiled, because when you go for these elections and you spend the kind of money that you spend there has to be some source for those finances. And when you win those sources, those campaign sources, want to be paid in ways that are exponentially greater than was invested. And so our people have to understand that that law has to come. It should have come twenty years ago, it has to come now. But when the law comes we have to follow it and that requires all of us to follow it because elections cannot continue to be as unconscionably expensive as it is right now because we will continue to have the problems that we’re having. We absolutely have to have campaign financing.”
The call for campaign finance legislation in Belize is nearly two decades old. And after years of promises, proposals and debate, there is still no comprehensive law requiring political parties and candidates to account publicly for who funds their campaigns and how the money is spent. As far back as 2008, then Prime Minister Dean Barrow questioned how a law could stop large donors from giving money under the table. By 2016, UDP Minister Godwin Hulse was publicly supporting a system in which donations would go through political parties and be properly recorded. In 2020, while in opposition, John Briceño made a firmer commitment. The PUP promised that, within its first one hundred days in office, it would instruct the Attorney General’s Office to draft campaign finance legislation for public consultation. Former UDP mayor Darrell Bradley also presented a draft proposal that year, including rules on disclosure and who could donate. But the promised law did not follow. In 2023, Political Reform Minister Henry Charles Usher said political parties needed their own campaign finance bill. The Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry produced a draft that year. Then, ahead of the 2025 general election, Prime Minister Briceño said he supported legislation but did not expect it to pass during that term of his administration. The recent spending seen at the PUP’s Belize City mayoral convention has brought the issue back into focus. Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde says he supports campaign finance rules. Minister Kareem Musa has said he hopes to take a proposal to Cabinet by the end of this year, while Opposition Leader Tracy Taegar-Panton is also calling for reform. The Chamber has circulated an updated draft setting out proposed spending limits and donor disclosure requirements. It is a matter on our newsroom’s watchlist.
English (US) ·